


Pick Your Path & I'll Pray

by coraxes



Series: dishonored shorts [6]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Post-Dishonored (Video Game), Rated D for Dunwall, damn i waited so long in this series to use a lyric title
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 13:36:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20967419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coraxes/pseuds/coraxes
Summary: Jessamine didn't want Emily to have to fight. Emily just doesn't want to die.





	Pick Your Path & I'll Pray

Emily had wanted to train with Corvo for as long as she could remember. When she was really little—maybe six or seven—she had read somewhere that the best swordsmen began training when they were only eight, and she’d begged for lessons for the next handful of birthdays. Mother always said Emily would learn when she was older, there was so much else she had to do now to be a good empress, and anyway Corvo would defend them so Emily shouldn’t worry too much. He showed her a couple of things—corrected her stance whenever she play-wrestled, taught her how to throw a punch—but they never had formal lessons.

(“She’s just a little girl,” Emily heard her mother say once, when she was supposed to be asleep. “The Isles are at peace. She shouldn’t grow up to be a soldier.”)

Of course, that all changed once Emily became empress. She didn’t even have to ask. The day after they returned, Corvo woke her up just before dawn and led her to the practice yard.

“Hit me,” he said. His voice was hoarse, like it had been since he finally started speaking again, and he still looked grey and tired from whatever the Admiral had done.

(She could still see the Admiral’s body lying on the floor near his war table. Corvo hadn’t fought him; all Emily had heard was the Admiral’s muttering cut off by a gross gurgle, and then the click of the lock.

He had helped them, and then he’d tried to take Corvo away from her, just like everybody else.)

Emily set her feet the way Corvo had taught her—the way she remembered, anyway, it had been a while—and made a fist. Then she stopped. “Hit you where?”

Corvo shrugged. “Wherever you think it’ll hurt.”

When the assassins had taken her she had punched one of them right in the filter of their mask. They assassin had yelled and dropped her, and Emily almost managed to run to the edge of the roof before another one grabbed her with magic. Corvo didn’t have his mask on—his would probably cut her hand up even worse than the whaling mask had—so she swung for his nose.

Before her hand could make it to his face, though, he grabbed her wrist. “You’re too short for that,” he chided. “If you have to throw a punch—especially against someone taller—aim here.” He lowered her fist to just under his ribcage and angled it up. Corvo let go of her arm and backed away. “Let’s try again. Hit me.”

This time when Emily swung her fist she thought of the Admiral’s stupid lying face, and Custis and Morgan’s stupid lying faces, all of them trying to steal her life and her family and convince her they were on her side. And when she hit Corvo her hand hurt, but Corvo let out a surprised  _ oof  _ and jolted back. “Good,” he said, after he caught his breath, and clapped her on the shoulder. “Just like that. Don’t hesitate.”

* * *

“Emily—Emily, are you alright—” Corvo’s hands fastened on her shoulders, her face. “Get a physician for the empress!” he barked over his shoulder.

“I’m fine,” Emily said, but he didn’t listen so she said it louder. “I’m  _ fine.  _ Corvo, it’s not my blood, I’m not hurt.” Her forehead ached where she had slammed it into the assassin’s nose, and her hair and sleeve were uncomfortably tacky. But she was fine. Her heart wasn’t even beating fast. She looked down at her shortsword; it was bloody, too. If she put it away would that mess up the sheath? They’d never talked about that in practice.

Corvo’s eyes searched her face until they got a little less wild, a bubble of quiet in the bustle of guards and curious bystanders around them in the estate’s garden, and he nodded. “You’re not hurt,” he agreed quietly. She tried to turn around—they’d yanked her away from the assassin—but Corvo pulled at her shoulder, turning her back. “No, don’t look.”

“What’s going to happen to him?” she said, ignoring the order. Corvo wasn’t really allowed to give those to her anyway. There were too many people crowded around the assassin; all she could see were a pair of worn leather boots.

Corvo hesitated. “He’s—he’s dead, Emily,” he said, careful.

Emily nodded. “I know. I went up.” She held her blade out at an angle so he could see what she meant. “Between the ribs, like you taught me. I mean, what’s going to happen to the body?”

“We’ll examine it, and then—Emily, wait—”

She ignored that too and walked up to the body. One of the watch tried to shield her from it but Emily just looked at him until he moved.

Emily hadn’t been able to go to her mother’s funeral. She was still “missing” then. But more than one person had told her through tears, real or fake, that Jessamine looked so peaceful and beautiful and healthy, they half-expected her to wake up in the middle of the service.

The assassin didn’t look peaceful. His eyes and mouth were still open, his nose shattered. The stab wound wasn’t what Emily expected—his shirt was brown and it just looked black with blood, not red. Of course it did. Why would she have thought anything else?

Emily waited to feel sick like Corvo had warned her, but all she felt was tired. She turned back from the assassin. “I want to go home now,” she said, and frowned at her voice; it sounded whiney, like a little girl’s. She was an Empress. Hadn’t she just proved it? Emily locked eyes with one of the estate’s guards. “Bring my carriage around. Please.”

“Of course,” the guard said, and bobbed off. Corvo talked to a few more people—Emily didn’t really listen but it must have been about the assassin, figuring out how he got in. Probably some of the guards would be fired by the end of the day. Emily should have felt sorry for them but she wasn’t caring about any of the right things.

When they were finally safe inside the carriage, just Emily and Corvo with the city bubbling on around them, Emily said, “I didn’t hesitate. I’m glad he’s dead.” Did not caring make her bad? Mother had cared about her enemies, hadn’t she? People always said that, how she was so kind even to people who hated her. “And—and next time someone tries to kill me, I can do it again.”

Sometimes Corvo scolded her for being too— _ bloodthirsty  _ was what Callista called it,  _ unladylike  _ was what some of the maids said. She waited for him to scold her again. Instead he pulled her close against him and kissed the top of her head. “That’s my girl,” he said, and when he pulled back there was red on his mouth and nose.

**Author's Note:**

> i love creepy kid Emily so much, guys. it's almost enough to make me play high chaos. almost. and i like trying to write versions of the character where both high chaos and low chaos are believable.


End file.
